Posts
You should probably read Chapter 1 , Chapter 2, Chapter 3 or Chapter 4, before reading this one. There are re-ocurring characters and references to previous events.
(Yes, I know that they're technically too short to be Chapters. It's just easier to track them, that way.)
A Late Arrival To The Party.
My socks and shoes are soaking wet.
In my rush to cover the lawn, I ran into ankle deep water and there was no way around it. Normally, I woulda found a different way, but I wanted to be clear of the lawn, before the guards made their way back again. So, I ran straight through. I hop down behind a hedgerow, holdin' my hat on. No need to pull my guns. I'm not there for a gunfight.
Christ, it's comin' down cats and dogs out here. This might not've been such a smart idea, after all. Well, at least I know that the rain will keep the dogs in, tonight. They've got more sense than I do, stayin' high and dry in the kennels.
Looking through the railin' of the balcony and the hard, November rain, I see the party inside. The whole place is a blur of black tuxedos and shiny evening gowns. The laughter is loud and constant and, if you ask me, a little bit forced. Zelda Lumquist, the Losenge Queen of Chicago, is dancin' on a white piano while some masher rattles out a herky jerky tune for her. Also, he's trying to catch a peep up her skirt. She dances a crazy, jaunty ragtime dance on the piano, always just a lean away from fallin' off the piano into the watching crowd. Lumquist looks like she was flyin', defyin' gravity in a way that only a real rummy can.
Across the crowd, I see the hostess of the party climb the stairs. She don't look the least bit amused by the shenanigans goin' on around her. Someone catches her eye and she lights up in an instant, flashing a smile and waving at them. It's a dazzlin' smile. One of her best features, really. But as soon as she's not bein' watched no more, her face settles back into that look of mild disgust. I see a fat man in a penguin suit fall down her steps, ass over elbows, right past her, tumblin' into the party and she takes that as her cue and goes upstairs. I think I know exactly where she's goin'.
I look up and sure enough, the light comes on in the third floor study. This dame is nothin', if not predictable. If I play this right, I'll be on top of her before she knows what's happening.
I glance around for the guards and I can see all four of 'em by the front gate, huddlin' up under the little bit of shelter that the guardhouse offers. They're sharing a smoke and I can see from their lowered guns that they're relaxed and jokin' around. They'll never see me.
I hop over the balcony and make my way South, around the manor house, headin' for the buildings corner. I jog past window after window of the party, fogged up from the breath of the spoiled, fat, yammerin' idiots inside. It's like a fancy-dress nursery in there. Big, fat babies wallowin' all over each other, scattered by the occasional upchucking. I don't even bother to hide. I know that they're not looking outside in this rainstorm.
At the Southeast corner, I come up to the rain gutter and the corner molding that I've scaled a dozen times, before. It occurs to me that as many times as I've made this climb, I've never done it in a blower like this. So, I take a few more minutes than normal, making the climb to the third floor. All in all, the rain don't make that much of a difference anyways.
I begin carefully making my way across the third floor architecture. I keep it low, so that my center of gravity is with me, instead of against me. The wind is blowin', but not hard enough to knock me off. Plus. I'm wearing my Gummo brand softshoes, "The Private Detective's Warm-Souled Friends!" Ha! You can't make up a tagline that cornball!
In no time at all, I'm at the study window. It's closed and locked and through the sheer curtains, I can only, just barely, make out the room inside. I can very clearly see a woman's little right hand reachin' out from behind the study chair, casually turnin' a small crystal tumbler. The study door is closed. She's all alone in there. If this works the way I've planned it, nobody at the party will hear a thing.
I take one more glance over at the guards and they're still playin' grabass in the guardhouse. Nothing to worry about there. I pull my lockpick kit from inside my coat and select the Number 2, iron probe. I know, from experience, that I can stick it through the crack of the window and with a slow, patient steady upward pressure, slide the hook of the clasp for the window. It takes a second, but in short order, I can feel the windows open for me, blown open by the wind. When I look inside, I see that she's not holding the tumbler anymore. She's now entirely concealed inside the large study chair. Who knows what she's thinkin'? She ought to have no idea that I'm right behind her.
I take a slow, silent step into the room. The rug absorbs the small flood of water that comes cascading out of my Gummo shoe. I hear the "squish" sound, but I bet noone else does. I step the rest of the way into the room and then turn back to close the windows. I refasten the windows and begin to slowly creep over to the study chair. I pat my guns, making sure that they're there. Ready. They always are.
I creep up on the highback study chair and see that she's having a gin and tonic. Her drink of choice. Her thin, hand-rolled cigarette is slowly smoldering in the ashtray on the desk.
I'm running through the list of charming one liners that I'm going to use to surprise her, when I feel the unmistakable cold steel kiss of a pistol pressed to the back of my neck. I intinctively raise my arms, open-palmed to show that I'm not armed. Dammit. I'd hate to get shot in the head, here, in this study. In wet shoes.
"I don't remember inviting you to this party, Mann." she says drolly.
"Sure you did. You just forgot to say it outloud. Incidentally, how'd you hear me come in?" I take a slow step forward, towards her desk.
"You jimmied open the lock and opened up a window into my study during the middle of a rainstorm. You couldn't have made more noice if you'd been playing 'Muskrat Ramble' on Louis Armstrong's trumpet." She don't laugh, but I can hear it there, behind what she's sayin'. I step over to her gin and tonic and finish it off for her. I don't look back, but I know that she's put her gun away. She wasn't going to plug me. She just wanted me to know that she could've, if she wanted to.
"Can I fix you another?" I say and I stroll over to the bar, behind the faux bookshelf wall.
"Gin and Tonic. And don't pour for a lady, mister." Each step I take brings forth a fresh squish, "What've you got on instead of shoes? Trout?"
"Clever girl." I pop the top off her gin bottle and begin to pour.
"What are you doing here, Calvin?"
The question gives me pause. Not because of what she's askin', but what she's sayin'. Namely, I ain't wanted here. I keep on pouring the gin.
"Aw, you know me. Never one to miss a lively party. I thought I would cut a rug with the mayors wife and then dance the Charleston with District Attorney, Meehill. I hear he's quite a dancer. Very light in the loafers, if you catch my meaning." Two ice cubes clink into the glass along with the suggestion of a tonic splash. I make myself a whiskey, on the rocks.
"Funny. I don't want you to go downstairs, Calvin. You weren't invited tonight. And if you go downstairs, it'll cause more trouble for me than I want right now." she stays standing, which is odd. Maybe she's expecting a fight. This dame is hard. Rigid. Everything about her body language tells me that there's more to be said.
"Okay, dollface. I'll play Quasimodo and hang out up here in the belfry. Later on, we can meet in your boudoir and see if we can't ring some bells." I hand her the drink and take a pull off of mine. The heat in my chest blasts away at the cold dampness.
"I'm sorry, Calvin, but you can't stay here tonight."
"Why not?"
"I already have an overnight guest for tonight."
A crack of lightning lights up the room and we both stop to listen to the thunder's immediate response and how it trails off, rolling away towards the city. I take another pull on my whiskey. A big one. I might not be around much longer, to finish it off.
"Who is it?"
"That's none of your business," she says. And technically, she's right. Luckily for me, I don't get hung up on technicalities, too often.
"I said, who is it?" I ask the floor. I can't make eye contact with her. I'm too angry.
"You probably don't know him, but it's Tino Van Reagan." I can feel her eyes on me. But I don't look at her. I don't want her to get any satisfaction from hurtin' me as much as this does. I try to laugh it off, with a joke.
"The theater producer? From that tin-pan alley joint? I thought he was a fey."
"Yes, he's a producer and no, he's not a homosexual. We're just old friends." I'm sure it sounds like a lie to her, too. She sounds like she's explaining something to a child. Something too complicated for the child to understand.
"Sure, sure. And this is just a slumber party. I get it." I finish the whiskey and for a minute, I stand there, looking down at the empty glass. I try to decide what to do with it. For some reason, it never occurs to me, just to put it over on the bar. Maybe because that would mean that I really was about to leave.
I get an idea and as much as I want to deny it, I know that I'm going to follow through with it. This is going to get me in trouble. But I'm going to do it, anyways.
"Don't be bitter, Calvin. I always said that I'm a free spirit and that I need to follow my instincts. That's all that this is. You know that I like you, right? You must know that, don't you?" She takes a step towards me, around the desk. I turn my back on her.
"Whatever you want, kitten. This whole adventure has been your plan, all along. We ain't done nothin' that wasn't what you wanted. Every time we meet at Sam's, it's because YOU came for me. And every night I've spent here is because YOU brought me back here. Why should this, be any different?" I look up over the fireplace and there's the portrait of her dead husband, the astrophysicist, Dr. Carl Ebbers. He is looking out of from the picture with a hard look on his brow. I think that maybe he's focusing on not following through with the urge to backhand his wife, for twisting him up like she does. I can't ask him, because he's dead. Squashed flat by a meteorite strike to his lab in upper New York state. I joke to myself that he probably should've seen it coming. Being a meteorite and all.
"Calvin, perhaps you should go. Can I phone you tomorrow? Or meet you at Sam's Place for a drink?" She comes up right behind me and slides her arms around my chest, I can feel the pressure of her head on my back. That only makes me angrier. To be curled up next to in the night, but hidden away in the day. Like a thing that she's ashamed of. I don't like thinkin' about myself, that way. I'm gettin' real tired of bein' somebodies dirty secret.
"You aren't going to want to see me tomorrow. I'll be in a bad way. Drunk. Or worse. Besides, it sounds like you're going to be up late tonight and you'll want to get your rest tomorrow." I shrug my shoulder and she slips off. "One more thing, I'm sorry."
"What for?" she asks. She's already turning away from me, punishing me for shurgging her off.
"For the ambulance that you're going to have to call. And for the bodily harm that I'm about to inflict upon somebody." I look down and the glass is still in my hand. I guess this is going to happen, after all.
"Don't do anything foolish, Calvin." she hisses the words at me.
"Baby, I already did. When I stepped out of that hack and onto your property tonight. Also, when I didn't see the chump you were playin' me for." I place my hand down on the big globe in the library and give it a wild spin. Country after country rolls by, in front of me. I have to resist the urge to kick the damned thing as hard as I can.
"I want you to leave now. Can you got back out the way that you came in?" she moves to the window, ready to let me out.
"No, I don't think that I will. I think that I'll be going out the front door actually. Like a man. Have a fun party, kid. Have fun with your fop." I dump the ice in my glass in a nearby trashbin and exit the door of the study, drinking glass in hard. I flex and feel the hardness of the crystal drinking glass.
Behind me, I hear her say, "Calvin! No!", but she doesn't follow. Perhaps she don't want the hostess of this fancy dance party to be seen with a bum like me. As I descend the stairs, I can see her standing in the doorway of the study. All the confidence drained from her, she looks lost and upset now. Maybe that's regret that I see on her face. If not, I'm sure that I'll see it later.
Below me, I hear slow piano playing and a male tenors voice, strolling his way through some ballad. The crowd is completely silent. Lulled by his velvet tones, no doubt. All eyes are on our singer. The man in the tuxedo and with his pencil thin, blonde moustache. He's standing on some end table and he's painfully picking his way through, "Danny Boy." He don't see me, but I see him. It's Van Reagan and the arrogant prick is slaughtering a good old fashioned irish ballad.
I lean back and get some pull on me and throw the whiskey glass at his head as hard as I can. It's a perfect pitch, hard and fast and silent. With an arm like this, I should be pitching for the White Sox! Van Reagan is about to crescendo to the climax of the song, when the glass connects with his forehead and a cracking sound rips through the room. "Ooooooooh, Danny Bo-" and WHAM, Van Reagan drops like a corpse. Right off the end table and into the crowd of onlookers. Of course, people look around for whoever threw the glass, but I'm already heading towards the door. The other guests either look around for the assailant or rush to assist the inured tenor. A shot to the head like that, has got to ring a man's bell. I bet that greaser pissed his pants when he hit the ground. General shouts for police or an ambulance are heard. Nobody looks at the shabbily dressed guy in the trenchcoat who quietly slips out the front door.
A couple of swells are gettin' out of their hack, at the front door and I offer to take it from them.
"You guys better hurry in there, the D.A. just beaned his boyfriend with a drinking glass!" I say. The two late arrivals, probably boyfriends, themselves, look panicked to have missed this social event and rush inside to start spreading the rumor for me. You're very welcome, Mr. District Attorney.
I give the driver the address to the Shady Moon diner, in Chicago. I want to get a late night meal and to see if Ellie is workin' tonight. I know she's got it bad for me and I never acted on it, on account of her bum leg and all. But tonight, I'm hurt and I need someone to lick my wounds. Tonight, I might bed Ellie down, after all. At the very least, I know that she'll feed me well.
Who knows, maybe she'll even let me dry out my socks and shoes on her radiator.
No comments:
Post a Comment